Renaissance Beauty (Radio Edit)

0:01Hello and welcome to You're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are plucking our brows and caking our faces with lead as we learn all about the history of beauty in Renaissance Italy. And to help us with our makeover, we have two very special visitors to the You're Dead to Me Salon. In History Corner, she's Professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, where her research focuses on how human bodies were thought about and modified during the Renaissance.

0:32You might have read her wonderful book, How to Be a Renaissance Woman, The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity. It's Professor Jill Burke. Welcome, Jill. Hello. It's lovely to be here. And in Comedy Corner, she's a bilingual comedian and social media star based in Paris. Maybe you saw her debut sellout stand-up tour, Fugue, or have seen one of her many hilarious TikToks and Instagram reels about the differences between French and British culture. It's Tati McLeod. Welcome to the show, Tati. Thank you very much for having me. Excited to be here. Delighted to have you here. First time on the show.

1:04Yes, it is indeed. And I suppose the obvious question, do you like history? Do I like history? Yeah, right. I mean, we've all got one. Great. Depends who you're asking. In what context? Relationship history? I was going to say. Personal history? I'm intrigued. I'm interested. I'm curious. I'm open. I'm present. Great. You're known for your Get Ready With Me videos. Do you know anything about the Renaissance era and beauty trends? No, I mean, I don't know today's beauty trends. I feel like if there's something, you know, especially when you're on social media and I'm in my mid 30s. So I'm really not the target audience for TikTok.

1:43And I spend a lot of my time just scrolling through trying to keep up with the never ending new brands, new products, new Fandango thing that you should be buying. So if anything, I'm probably closer to Renaissance history makeup trends than I am to current makeup trends. So what do you know?

2:07That brings us to the first segment of the podcast, the So What Do You Know? This is where I guess what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. Maybe you've seen famous Titian paintings of lovely Renaissance ladies gazing ardently at themselves in the mirror or putting on their makeup. You might have heard of Queen Elizabeth I painting her face with white lead. I mean, who can forget Margot Robbie's look in the Mary Queen of Scots movie? Barbie would never. But how did women and men really get ready in the Renaissance? What make-up looks were trending? And why was arsenic a vital part of the beauty regime?

2:40Let's find out, Professor Jill. Let's start with the beauty basics. A primer on primer, if you will. When was the Renaissance period? Like, technically, because it overlaps the medieval period in a very confusing way. How would you define it? It is a little bit confusing in that it's related to the rebirth of classical antiquity, the interest in classical antiquity, which in Italy started a little bit before other places in Europe. So normally we'd say from about 1400, so 15th century in Italy, to about maybe 1650, something like that. So late Middle Ages and part of the early modern period. So basically the rest of Europe had to catch up.

3:14Sort of like a fashion trend that starts somewhere. Absolutely. That's exactly. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you. I mean, I'm comparing. It's exactly people like Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, all those people. All the turtles. All the turtles who made like a massive difference and a massive change to the way that people painted and the way that people saw things and had an effect actually on the way that people understood beauty. So if you look at, say, maybe you'll be able to think of Botticelli's Birth of Venus, you know, when she's on it. I know that one. Yes. I know that one. And she's naked and she's, you know, rising from the waves.

3:49that has an idea of female beauty that's different from the Middle Ages, a different shaped body. It's relating to classical sculpture. And when people saw these paintings and prints from these paintings, they decided to change their bodies to look more like the paintings. So there's a change not just in art, but also in the way that people understood their own bodies and other people's beauty. It's a nostalgia vibe. Yeah, absolutely. And they're going way back to the Roman era. Way back to the Roman era. and they're reading and ancient Greece as well, but they know more about ancient Rome. And they're also reading more classical texts.

4:23So people like Galen, who's one of the most important medical writers in classical times, they're rereading him and Galen writes about cosmetics as well. So doctors start to be really interested in cosmetics and wealthy women start to commission doctors to cure any of their beauty ailments as well. So there's a real abundance of recipes from this period. Oh my God, it's so fascinating. the parallels of like Botox and surgery you know like you can imagine it back then just being like have you heard of doctor absolutely yeah Dr Fallopio Fallopio yeah I've heard that famous for his tubes yes exactly it's incredible he does amazing work for the royal family yeah so Fallopio who wrote about the first time about the fallopian tubes also gave beauty tips advice and he lectured on beauty at the University of Padua and from then this is a big university where doctors from all over Europe came.

5:15And so they'd listen to Fallopia and then they'd go and write their own beauty books. So yeah, there's loads of similarities. The best-selling one is Marinello's Ornament of Ladies. Ornament of Ladies, yes. This came out in 1562, but beauty recipe books started in the 1520s. So the Ornamenti de la Donne, the Ornament of Women by a doctor, Giovanni Marinello, has about 4 ,000 recipes. Wow. Marinello's book tells you the ideal look at the beginning of every chapter and then says things like, Like if you're hairy, you're like a wild beast. You can't blame your husband for leaving you. This kind of thing.

5:47So it's really terrible. It's funny. But at the same time, you really recognise these tropes about beauty, about women. So there'll be recipes for things like recipes if you want to look for ever 20 or 25. Are you serious? I am serious, yeah. Because it just, I don't know if it's like funny or fascinating or worrying that nearly hundreds of years later, they're thinking, yeah, well, I mean, not a huge amount has changed. Like that sounds like if you pitch that as a marketing approach to something that you were writing now, you'd be like, yeah. But that's a real facet of Renaissance culture because there's a lot in Renaissance culture about pretending to be better than you are.

6:23Right. Well, we're structuring this episode a bit differently, Tati. We're going to do it like a Get Ready With Me video, which means we need an Italian Renaissance couple. We need a fella and a lady. Do you want to name them for us? Who are our hot Italian couple? Oh, OK. Her name is Botticella. And then let's call him Angelo. Angelo. Oh, very good. Botticello and Angelo. Oh, my God. Let's start their routine there. We start with hygiene. Oh, really? Yeah. What type of washing do you think they're doing? Do you think they're doing everything shower? I think you're asking how I wash. No, no. I'm not going to ask you that.

6:56No, because people have this, yeah, French. But anyway, you're half French. So anyway. I'm half French, but I wouldn't go that far. No. How are you imagining them getting clean? Everything showers or much more modest? I'm thinking more like a cloth and a big copper basin. Yeah, that's what I imagine more. And probably staff washing their back next to a big fire. Let's place it in spring. That's nice of the story. It's spring, we've got some nice dapple natural light coming through. So big copper basin, buy a fireplace, which probably isn't lit because it's warm enough. People didn't have baths generally.

7:32Some really, really, really wealthy people had running water and had running baths in their house, but they were like maybe a bit above the echelon of Botticella. You don't know Angelo. Angelo's in me. It's had a great year. But copper basin is good because you would have a copper basin to wash your hair in. Oh, well done, Tati. Thank you very much. Often on a stand, you'd have obviously some servants to bring in hot water for you. Of course. You'd do it yourself. Goodness me, you wouldn't do it yourself. Because you didn't have baths at home, you'd also go to the bathhouse. That might be as much as once a month.

8:03so people would um wash once a month you well they'd wash in the bathhouse once a month yeah but they'd wash every day and washing often involved rubbing your body with towels this says quite a lot of rubbing your body with towels so a lot of head health because they were worried that noxious vapors would build up in your head overnight so in the morning that's what a hangover so in the morning well they're all drunk probably quite a lot of the time as well you'd comb your hair very rigorously you'd rub your head you'd rub your face you'd have to You blow your nose, you'd brush your teeth probably with a little cloth or some wood.

8:37And so you do something like that every day. There'd often be scented waters and you'd change your shirt. They're very, very into changing linen and having fresh white linen. A couple of times a day, right? Sometimes. Yeah, yeah. So people would have like hundreds of shirts. Even like the poorest people would have 16 or 17 undershirts. So our couple Botticella and Angelo. Yeah. Lovely. Okay. Are they shaving? Are they waxing? Or are they using the depilation cream? How do you get rid of body hair in the 16th century? And more specifically, Brazilian, Hollywood, just the size. What are we working with here?

9:11What's Bosse got going on down there? We are working with complete baldness. Oh, really? Wow. Yes. A practice associated with Islamic bathing cultures. Certainly in the Middle Ages, crusaders would return with stories of having all their body hair shaven off in the baths. Right. This is very strange. but certainly by maybe the 13th century you start to get recipes in southern italy for a kind of veet type cream uh to remove body hair oh you don't know what's what's in it yet just wait um so tatty you're yeah veet uh other products are available of course uh hair removal cream i'm physically in pain i i i can i'm i'm i'm empathizing with these women that i've never met from hundreds of years ago.

9:59I mean, Vita's bad enough now, but back then, oh God, these poor girls. Do you know what it's made of, Tati? Go on. Quick lime, arsenic, and what you do is you make it into a paste, and you smear it onto your body, wherever you want hair removed, as it says in the recipe, and then you leave it for the time it takes to say the Lord's Prayer twice. And then you get a maid to throw water on you. So you wash it off. And it does say you should wait until it gets hot and then remove it quickly before the flesh falls off. Yeah, I mean, quicklime is caustic. Arsenic is a toxin. Alum is a metal and they're all going in your secret parts.

10:41That's not good. No, I thought the next part was going to be put this on and then eventually just die. That's a natural next step, isn't it? But it is fascinating, I have to say, because obviously body hair is such a political thing now. What's your choice? And I felt like this is the first time hearing that was even a subject matter before this contemporary age. I thought it was something that was quite a new thing. But to hear that women have been suffering from this for hundreds of years, I'm going to leave here more feminist and more angry than when I came in. My job is done. Radicalised. This body hair removal routine involving arsenic and caustic, was it something that just the women were experiencing and were men also taking off their body hair?

11:29Is Angelo also whipping it all off? There's so little evidence about men's human hair. Ah, here we go. So there's so little evidence about men and grooming, it's really hard to understand whether they removed their hair or not. There's more evidence about women, right? And I can trace that in the recipes. if you look at the sculpture of the time like michelangeles david for example it has very trim yes neat looking pubic hair so there might have been some trimming involved okay but i'm not sure about actual complete removal all right okay i think that's unlikely let's talk about hair washing so how are they keeping that clean jill well this is where the copper basin comes in you'd lean over a copper basin and you'd have your maid bring in some kind of scented water or maybe some kind of shampoo which is made with ashes so a lie into a soap or they use things like mallow they had conditioners things to make hair fuller bodied and all of these we've made some of these and they do are quite effective but one of the issues in the period was how to dry your hair yes because once you've wet your hair you don't have a hair dryer in the winter it could take ages it could take days to wash and dry your hair um and so and so Likretia Borgia who was um you know the pope's daughter yes we did an episode and the governor in Spoleto um actually would get really hated going to these social events that she had to go to um and she'd say no I'm washing my hair I've got simply got to wash my hair absolutely I love that no but also that it is look I mean nowadays you know wash day and which day do I wash I've got to go to the gym if I go to the gym don't wash before to wash afterwards it takes a couple of hours last night I slept with a with a hair mask on I get it and I actually think that is something we need to bring back okay that is It's a completely socially acceptable reason to not turn up to an event.

13:15I can't come to work today. It's wash day. So some of those hair conditions sound quite nice. Some of them less so. My list includes bears fat, bats blood, burnt lizards, burnt moles, crushed hedgehogs, crushed insects. So when I hear that list, I do start to understand the association between women and witches. Because that sounds like a potion. Let's talk about, just quickly, the perfect hair that you would want. Angelo, let's talk about later on maybe, but Botticella, what hair does she aspire to have? So in the Renaissance, it was believed that hair was a sign of your internal mixture of humours, the internal liquids that made up your body, that determined health, determined personality.

14:02And so your hair could be a sign of what you were like inside. And this is true for men and for women. So men's hair should be dark, ideally, and women's hair should be thick, wavy and golden. Oh, I was hoping you were going to say pink. Yes, for the record, Tati has a lovely pink bob. Oh, you were calling it a bob? What's that? What's the style? What humour is pink bob in Renaissance Italy? Well, they do talk about dyeing your hair red and they, and Marinella says, I don't know why women want to do this. They're so capricious. capricious okay i can i can get on that board okay so angelo and botticella they've got washed they're clean they've done their hair now it's on to the skincare routine right what are you imagining korean style 11 step beauty i mean to be honest nowadays i can't even keep up with skincare routines i take makeup off and then i put a cream on so i'm probably not the right reference they might even have something more complicated than that probably something like a vegetable oil avocado paste on the face maybe a bit of arsenic because if there's no poison there's no peril if there's no peril it's not really skincare routine is it it's not skincare routine if you're not going to maybe die from it is it take it away well of course you're completely right no they did so they did have kind of complex routines so you'd start at night the night before you'd cleanse your skin and that could be something like bran or breadcrumbs mixed with scented water so that a little bit of exfoliation and then you'd have a treatment and that would depend on what kind of skin you had so you might include vinegar was quite popular if you've got greasy skin or nettle tonic if you've got red skin because nettle does actually stop inflammation or a whitener and that would obviously include mercury and arsenic and also um snail slime was also used which is back in yeah right i mean we used to laugh at this on horrible histories we used to go ha ha ha snail slime and now it's like 300 quid for a pot so they were ahead of their time and you'd sleep with that on and then in the morning you'd you'd wash that off and then you'd maybe put some moisturizer on and then makeup so pretty good actually in the skincare routine yeah yeah ahead of okay i respect the skincare routine apart from the arsenic bleaching of the Yes, sorry.

16:19But that's just, you know, part of course at this point. Was it like Victorian times where paler skin meant you were richer? You know, pale skin, good. Darker skin means you work in the sun. You must be a peasant. Yeah, because, of course, beauty ideals have to be hard to achieve. What's the point of beauty ideals that are easy to achieve? Let's just take a moment to really think about that. And most women worked outside. You know, most women were working as agricultural workers like they have done kind of throughout history. And so having paler skin was a sign of being elite, an elite woman. But there was also a racialized element.

16:54In the 16th century in Italy, we do have an awful lot of African enslaved people in Italy, right? Yeah. So there's a fashion amongst some of the elites like Isabella d 'Este, who is the marchioness of Mantua. She says to her agent in Venice, can you get me a young black slave child as black as possible so that she looks whiter in comparison? So this is a little girl of about four. Like an accessory. Like an accessory. Yeah, yeah. And then around 1520, aristocratic women start to be painted in portraits alongside black servants or slaves. Really is a contrast to make their skin look paler. My God.

17:30That's horrible. It is horrible. OK, let's move on to something equally horrible, a different kind of horrible, white lead on the face. It's famous from the Elizabeth I portraits. If you've seen the Margot Robbie movie, Mary Queen Scott. I mean, that's that's bad, right? That's that's going to rot your face. You know, makeup historians have a problem with Margot Robbie. No, surely not. Margot's beloved. How dare you? Not Margot. I mean, we do adore Margot Robbie, but her portrayal is Elizabeth I. because one of the problems with white lead is that you can't actually use it, right? So people can't use it because we know it's poisonous.

18:08They knew it was not very good for you in the Renaissance as well. But recently there's been a project in McMaster University in Canada where they've got a nuclear physics lab so they can use white lead and they've put it on pigskin to see what it looks like. And actually it's not that kind of thick white paste that you see in the portraits of Elizabeth. It's actually translucent and it's light scattering. You know like light scattering foundations that you get today. Yeah. And it's a creamy colour. Mineral foundations. Yes. It's not bright. It's not bright white or very opaque. So the idea of what Elizabeth I looked like is partly from the portraits, but largely from using titanium dioxide as a replacement for white lead.

18:46And it's just not a very good replacement. I see. But, you know, they had replacements for white lead even in the Renaissance. So marble dust, for example. Oh. And I brought along a marble dust foundation for you to try. Egg white as well was used, wasn't it? Egg white. They use in a lot of different kinds of makeup and add a little bit of a sheen to your face. And egg white was used on the hair too, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, they use eggs in everything. They're readily available and they're quite inexpensive. So, yeah. Let's talk about cosmetics and let's try some cosmetics. I think it's time now for us to turn ourselves into guinea pigs a little bit and try some of this stuff.

19:27and by the magic of radio i am now transformed into a renaissance era beauty and just to be clear none of the stuff we are putting on our faces today is poisonous we've checked uh jill what am i wearing on my face it smells delicious first of all you have renaissance rose balm which is very delicious smelling it's just quite normal it's like lip balm with beeswax and that's that's actually something that i would use actually genuinely use today then there's some things that you might not use there's an anti-wrinkle cream with um lamb needed yeah yes not at all and frankincense and which normally also contains mastic which is another kind of tree gum and those have been found to have vitamin e and antioxidants and things like that so they could actually affect wrinkles some of this renaissance makeup is effective and then you've got what is really great about your look is your is the foundation which is made of marble dust because white lead is frowned upon nowadays um i wonder why i wonder why so it's made of um violet oil and rose water which smells nice right it smells good it's made you quite white and but you've also got beautiful rosy cheeks made with red sandalwood um which we're hoping we'll be able to wash off but mitch may stay yeah no one told me the sandalwood would be staining the cheeks so i would run with it it's really it's the hero of what's happening on your face right now it's giving met gala it's giving the oscars it's giving greg in a whole different light thank you if it doesn't wash off i think you can make this work yeah so what i'm getting here is that really actually women didn't have a lot of time outside of doing their hair and makeup and making the potions.

21:08I mean, that's why you'd have all your servants, I guess. I forgot about that bit. Of course, yes. Was there any kind of moral backlash to all of this? We've heard about, you know, some of the kind of fear that women were deceiving men and what he did, but was there any kind of like haters in the comments section, you know, when we've got our Angelo and Botticelli going out, are there people going like, oh God, this is awful and disgusting and immoral and God would be ashamed? It should all be natural. Oh, absolutely. I mean, all the way through, but particularly as the Cantareformation in Italy comes into force in the later 16th century and in England all the way through people are saying that cosmetics are lies it's deceitful that women are vain they're spending all their money on cosmetics yeah I know it's depressing um and that they're kind of changing the face that God gave them um and that that it's immoral so all a lot of kind of misogyny general misogyny is bound up and cosmetics use.

22:05Really, the grand area of cosmetics runs through the 16th century and then it kind of tails off as you get into the 17th century. And we also have this fear that women are poisoning their husbands with their makeup, right? I mean, this is a thing. It happens. It is actually true, yeah. It has happened, yeah. Amazing. So they trick their husbands into marrying them by using makeup and then they use the makeup to kill them. I mean, you sound just like a Renaissance priest. I'm really on board with it. I'm like, how can both the... How can the tool of oppression both be the tool of empowerment? Wonderful.

22:38There we go. Feminism for the win. I'm going to lead the witches. So this is the Aquatafana murders, very, very notorious in the 17th century, where they reckon like hundreds of men, of husbands, generally were killed by women using face cream. So they put this face monument into their husband's food or drink and they'd kill them slowly over a matter of weeks. and they set up a sting operation to find out this woman. They tricked, yeah, they sent someone along trying to buy some of the poison and in fact she was an agent of the Roman police in disguise. The poisoner sold her it and they kind of swooped out and arrested her.

23:17Wow. That's amazing, isn't it? The nuance window!

23:25Okay, so I think it's time for us to get to the nuance window. So this is the part of the show where Tati and I sit quietly in front of the mirror and fix our makeup, or I try and remove mine anyway, for two minutes while Professor Jill enters the dressing room to tell us something we need to know about Renaissance beauty. My stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Jill. OK, so stories about past cosmetic use can be delightful and they can be funny, but they mask some pretty serious history. How we look isn't governed just by our genes, but is mutable. a complex to-ing and fro-ing between external forces such as food availability, types of work, our environment and the choices we make to look after and adorn our bodies, hair and faces.

24:02It's only recently that historians have realised that the history of cosmetic and hygiene practices is no mere amusing side quest but reveals much about the concerns, assumptions and prejudices of the past. Cosmetic recipes and ideas spread across cultures are shaped by trade, fashion and colonialism. Assumptions about ideal beauty are steeped in preconceptions of gender, race and class, prejudices against people typically based on their appearance alone. Cosmetics are often criticised as they thwart attempts to read inner character through external appearance. So large-scale historical shifts play out in our bathroom mirrors and affect how we understand our own bodies in relationship to the world.

24:39The history of beauty allows us to empathise with people in distant times and places, recognise their vanities, their frailties, their hopes and their fears. In a patriarchal society like Renaissance Europe, and let's face it, most past societies, women's hope of social progress or financial well-being was typically dependent on the goodwill of men. Looking your best was less vanity than necessity. Inventing and applying cosmetics was often associated with poorer women, people who are typically illiterate so don't turn up in historical sources, and if they do, only in court records. Reconstructing cosmetic recipes has given us a rich insight into these women's ingenuity, their cleverness in making ends meet, their understanding of what we now call science and their social networks.

25:21Compared to military history, say, or the biographies of great men, the history of beauty gives us a window into a multiplicity of experiences and a chance to remember lives that have been frequently disparaged or dismissed. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Really interesting. Yeah. It is easy, I think, to sort of think, oh, make it, you know, whatever. It's really interesting. It also reminds us, and it's still a conversation we have now on social media especially, Ashley, about how dismissive people can be about makeup, people doing makeup. And there's very much attitude of, oh, God, you've got nothing better to do with your time.

25:52And that actually how much of women's history is linked to that industry, sometimes not even by choice, but how dismissing it like that sort of doesn't allow us to hear those voices and that existence and what they were up to. So thank you for bringing it to the table. You're very welcome. Thank you. And thank you for smearing it on my face. Anytime. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Tati. Thank you so much, Professor Jill. Listener, if you want more on historical beauty standards, check out our episode on the history of high-heeled shoes. It's an absolute classic from back in the day. And also we did one on hair care entrepreneur Madam C.J.

26:28Walker. And for more on Renaissance Italy, why not listen to our episode on the Borgias? They were absolutely wild. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds to get episodes 28 days earlier than on any other app. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the brilliant Professor Jill Burke from the University of Edinburgh. Thank you, Jill. Thank you. And in Comedy Corner, we had the truly terrific Tati McLeod. Thank you, Tati. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we rifle through the bathroom cabinet of another historical subject.

26:59But for now, I'm off to go and find enough bats to keep my curly locks looking luscious. Please don't report me to any animal rights groups. Bye!

27:10Your Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.